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Frameworks for Farming Together

I began this research motivated by a desire to farm with peers – to work together in managing land, sharing costs and equipment, and generally making our lives easier. Throughout this process I’ve found that desire echoed countless times, in many variations, by farmers across the country. It’s clear that we face common challenges. It’s also clear that by working together, we get more than just a solution to a problem: we get solidarity.

There is no one model for “cooperative farming.” You can form separate businesses or one business. You can share land, or farm as neighbors, or farm together in a community or a region. We need a whole range of models and solutions for working together. We are learning to design our own tools and methods to match our scale and soil. In the same way, we need the knowledge to design our own business structures and agreements, to fit our unique circumstances of person and place.